In Rajasthan, a 33 year old pregnant woman was travelling from her village by train to the city of Ahmedabad for a routine medical checkup. While on the train, she began to go into labour. She delivered the baby prematurely in the train toilet on Tuesday night at midnight. The baby fell onto the railway track (I don’t know if the train was moving or stationary at the time or how the baby fell onto the track) and turned blue but suffered no major injuries. The baby girl is in the hospital and has some breathing problems, so she is on oxygen supplement and antibiotics but is stable.

In any office in India, and I suppose in most countries in the world, where you have a few hundred or more people working together, the spread of infectious diseases is always a major cause of concern. Other than colds & fever, one of most common concerns is chickenpox. In my office we have had our share of people getting sick & having to take leave due to the pox. Although non-fatal, the infected have to spend several uncomfortable days away from the public, until he / she recovers from it.

By my last, unofficial count, a 100 people have been infected by it in the last 14 months. 6 in the last couple of weeks. One guy had gone on a month’s leave for his exams and stuffÂ and had just came back for 10 days when he got hit by the virus. Another guy from the tech team also got the pox a few days later but he has had the worst of it, with marks on his face and arms still visible.

Martin Lapointe is the 3rd player to join the Ottawa Senators. The Chicago Blackhawks traded the former two time Stanley Cup winner (with Detroit) to the Sens in exchange for a 2008 6th round draft pick.

Chad Kilger makes the move from the Toronto Maple Leafs to the Florida Panthers. Toronto gets a 3rd round pick in the 2008 draft pick in return. Kilger will join his Maple Leaf teammate Wade Belak in Florida.

Hall Gill was acquired from Toronto by the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for their second-round pick in 2008 and a fifth-round pick in the 2009 Entry Draft at Tuesdayâ€™s trade deadline.

Anaheim Ducks added backup goalie Jean-Sebastien Aubin from the Los Angeles Kings for a 2008 seventh-round pick; defenseman Marc-Andre Bergeron from the New York Islanders for a 2008 third-round pick; and defenseman Jay Leach from the Tampa Bay Lightning for forward Brandon Segal and a 2008 seventh-round pick. The Ducks also dealt forward Brandon Bochenski to the Nashville Predators for future considerations.

The New York Islanders traded troubled forward Chris Simon to the Minnesota Wild for a sixth-round pick in this year’s draft.

The Carolina Hurricanes acquired forward Tuomo Ruutu from the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for left wing Andrew Ladd on Tuesday in a swap of former first-round picks.

Detroit Red Wings couldn’t resist the temptation to bolster a depleted defensive corps Tuesday, adding veteran Brad Stuart from the Los Angeles Kings in exchange for a pair of draft picks. Detroit, which is mired in a 1-7-1 slump, sent a second-round pick in this Juneâ€™s Entry Draft and fourth-round pick in 2009 to the Kings for Stuart.

Marcel Hossa was shipped out West in a five-player trade involving the New York Rangers and Phoenix Coyotes along with minor league goalie Al Montoya. Coming East to New York are right wingers Fredrik Sjostrom and Josh Gratton, as well as goalie prospect David Leneveu.The Rangers also bolstered their blue line with the acquisition of Swedish defenseman Christian Backman from the St. Louis Blues in exchange for a fourth-round draft pick in this Juneâ€™s Entry Draft.

The Colorado Avalanche announced that they have defenseman Adam Foote from Columbus in exchange for a conditional first-round draft pick with stipulations. Foote had previously played with the Avs and won the 1996 & 2001 Stanley Cups with the team.
The Avs also acquired defenseman Ruslan Salei from the Florida Panthers on Tuesday, giving up the rights to Karlis Skrastins and a third-round pick in the draft.

Washington also got Sergie Fedorov, the 1994 Hart Trophy winner as league MVP, from the Columbus Blue Jackets for defenceman Theo Ruth, who was a 2007 second-round draft pick.

The Vancouver Canucks traded Matt Cooke to the Washington Capitals for Matt Pettinger, in a straight swap involving two forwards.

The Atlanta Thrashers shipped Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis to the Pittsburgh Penguins for forwards Colby Armstrong and Erik Christensen, prospect Angelo Esposito and a first-rounder.

I I know that I must stop doing this. But somehow like a moth to a flame I keep headed for disaster. I am setting myself up for pain. I know not why I am unable to control these feelings. Every time I try to stay away, keep a distance, I get drawn in somehow.

There’s no escaping from this. I dunno why I fall for someone when I know that I am gonna be hurt anyway. Guys like me, don’t get girls like her. And guys like me were meant to be alone. I haven’t opened up about this girl. No one really knows. She doesn’t have a clue.

I thought that if I keep quite about it and don’t confess anything to anyone, not even my friends, then the feelings will go away. I know its silly of me to start feeling anything remotely like this. But on certain days, my heart aches & breaks.

I want to say something so badly and yet I shouldn’t. I want to be able to find that happiness. But I know that its not possible. So I resign myself to being quite, occupying myself with other things.

Being alone. I almost said something to her today. But I held myself. Cause if I do, I know that I’ll be headed for a heartbreak. Who needs one?

Normal day at the office, although I went a bit behind schedule during my training. After work I wanted to go over to the main office of ICICI bank in order to deposit the cheque and give a request for foreign exchange (as the cheque was in USD). I filled the form and did the formalities and then walked towards my apartment. I then realized that it was 7:40 pm and I was hungry. I called my friend Anil, who was already sitting in Malabar House with a couple of drinks in front of him. So I decided to join him and quickly made my way there.

I ordered vodka and we had some veggie food and chatted for sometime about a lot of stuff. I told him about my futuristic dream about us being alive 5000 years from now and him, Madhu & myself going to a small uninhabited planet, which had lots of green meadows, lakes & a breezy location, setting up a table and some comfy chairs and having a few drinks and some good food. I think he liked the idea almost as well as I did.

I came home thinking about the details of the previous post. I didn’t spend any time today with the person as I was in training all day and I left after sending my reports. I got into the bus along with one of my friends and played some songs on my ipod. I got down at Kacheripady and walked back home only stopping to buy some bread. Waiting for me was the envelope that I had been looking forward to. I got paid for the little project (I do not want to mention what it was for, but you can see it in my website). I kept thinking that it was nothing but a scam or someone playing a trick on me even if the company seemed to be on the level when I checked out their website. So I was thinking that it was a wishful thinking on my part to think that I would actually get paid for doing so little.

But I now have the check in my hand. The money, when converted from American dollars into Indian Rupees is just Rs.700 shorter than my usual monthly salary and so its a huge deal for me. That is so great. I’m gonna treat some of my friends and then get that external hard drive that I really want or a spanking new mobile phone. I could also use some new clothes. I’ll decide once I get the cash into my bank account. Thank you Ian and thank you to the company and thank you internet. I just love the internet.

Today morning as I was having my coffee and then while in the shower, I was thinking about something. Someone who I am close and quite friendly with has this habit of making fun of my weight. Now, normally I am quite used to it, even if I do get embarrassed, I normally don’t hold a grudge. But this person does it when the both of us meet the new joinees to our company for the very first time. This has happened a couple of times during the last few inductions.Â I’m sure she has no mean intentions. And I know that I should be used to people making fun of me because I am fat. But I felt bad thatÂ it was done on theÂ very first day that we meet theÂ new joinees, some of whom I would be training.

I didn’t say anything the first couple of times but I kept thinking about it today morning. So I typed an email to this person, who is my senior in the company, asking her if that was really necessary and that I didn’t mind if it was front of people I was comfortable with. I got a reply back a little later that the point was noted and that it wouldn’t happen again. But my question is : should I have not said anything? I mean, is that person going to stop being free with me because of this? I dunno if she is, but I have a feeling that it is going to be so.

We are the Land of Harthals & Bandhs. We will pick up a banner & a flag at the drop of a …dhoti and we will march on the streets, pledging allegiance to our political party without a moment’s thought. We will raise a hue and cry whenever we think that someone has hurt one of our religions, when someone says something that we don’t like, when a fallen dictator in another country, which most of us have never seen or have no connection with, is killed for the numerous crimes committed against humanity and his own people in particular, we will sit in a group reading newspapers & drinking hot tea while we debate the ills of other states & nations while totally oblivious about our own affairs, we will do nothing about the poor state of our roads and then hang on the doors of vehicles which have just been in an accident. We have a hundred superstitions and dumb ideologies which we disguise and then call it ‘tradition & culture’ and then call other cultures ‘weird’, we also have more rituals than you can count and individuality is frowned upon and so is progress. We have are communists dressed up as capitalists and think that elephant dung in temples is the coolest thing in the world. And we also make life difficult for the normal guy who wants to go to work, school, college, go about his normal business, cause we are Malayalees!

As stated yesterday, I knew very little about Chicago hard rock / metal band Disturbed. I had seen probably a couple of their videos on Channel V or MTv but the main reason I knew about this band was because of the song Stricken which is rocking and intense and every right to be called ‘disturbed’! I heard a couple more songs and I was convinced enough to try and get the band’s 2005 release 10000 Fists. And disappointed I was not – this album is filled with rolling thunder drums, pounding bass and really good guitar solos & riffs to make your heart beat faster. According to some long time fans of the Chicago band, this album’s material is more mature & complex than their previous work, evolving as they say. So let’s see what they have to offer us!

10000 Fists, an anthem for the generation of frustrated & deprived and for people who have been held back. Just Stop is telling someone who is constantly criticizing you to just back off and telling that person what you are capable of doing if only he / she would stop. Guarded is a song about someone who is scared of sharing their feelings. The person is keeping away from intimacy and opening up to anyone in the fear that it will come back and haunt them much later. The song is a plea to not be guarded and to start trusting. Deify can be taken in two ways – it can be about a relationship that was about the singer be totally devoted to his spouse and how he “deified” that person so much and is now depressed that the person turned out to so beneath himself. And for speaking out, the speaker is being chastised.

Or you can look at the lyrical meaning of believing in a guru or a god and finding out that the messiah is not true. I like this meaning much better. Stricken is their best song and about being unable to let go of a person even if things are going so bad. Even though the person does all these things and is complaining and the singer wants to leave, he knows that he will still come back.

Then comes an ultra-cool version of Genesis’ Land Of Confusion – a surprise choice by the band. I mean, I love the song, I think its so appropriate for our times, perhaps more so now than it was in the 80s. I remember the 80s as being more of a time of innocence. Watch the video that Todd McFarlane made to promote Disturbed’s version of the song.

I’m Alive, Son Of A Plunder, Overburdened, Decadence & Forgiven follow the similar lines of anger & frustration and retaliation. They make for some good aggressive songs.Â I mean, it didn’t seem to me that the members of Disturbed would listen to Gensis but then I do, so…. Anyways, Sacred Life, Pain Redefined and the politically charged Avarice end the album , which is so growing on me. I really like the band and the album. Go get it!

I first heard this song when the WWE showed promotional clips for their Pay-per-view event New Year’s Revolution 2006. I knew it was by the band Disturbed but I didn’t know the name of the song. The event came & went and I wasn’t sure of the name. Along the way, I kept thinking of the chorus and remembering that the line “Into The Abyss Will I Run”, I thought that the song’s name was “The Abyss”. I kept searching for the song all over the internet, with no luck ofcourse.

I just found out today that the song is actually called Stricken and what a song it is! Simply one of the best since 2000 and beyond. I love this song and plan on singing it at the next office function. If I can get my band mates to play the music, ofcourse. Play the clip, listen to the song & find the link to the lyrics below.

to kill a mockingbird online Where have I heard this before? It seems that she will never learn. She knows that he is no good for her and yet she goes back after every setback. And I am not sure about the drugs – does she also take it? Is she addicted to just him or the pills that he takes and can easily provide her with? She confessed to me that she only takes sleeping pills and that too very rarely. Each time I speak to her, I am surer & surer that she is on something. I just hope that she doesn’t take it too much. She isn’t strong enough, physically or mentally.

She called me to say that she had gone home to her parents for a few days and that she was then taken to a hospital for about 8 days. When I spoke to her uncle, he confirmed that the doc said that she has some stuff inside her system but that she could recover soon. Her version is that she is alright but that she does not know what happened to her at the hospital. She says that she was blank for 8 days and that she finally had to get herself discharged from there and came back to the hostel that she was staying in.

I don’t know where this is all going to lead. She needs to think straight, for herself, and understand the situation. Until that happens, I don’t think she can get any normalcy in her life. And I’m not sure she can make it to her 30th birthday (3 years away) if she doesn’t get rid of that asshole she married.

My first official New Batch Induction after joining up in my current role was today. (I was doing the same thing earlier for a couple of months but its official now)

I have now inducted 114 new recruits into the company on 5 different occasions.

It was quite funny today when there were 4 smallish girls, who not only looked alike, but when they introduced themselves we found out, and were all also from the same town and had done the same engineering course!!!

It was a long day today and although I wanted to leave by 6, it took me till 7:15 pm to get outta there!

As I was typing this, I realized that I also had posted a notes for 15th Feb, last year!

Its become so hot most evenings that I sleep nude as I sweat so much and the sheets stick to my thighs.

And even in this heat the first thing I do when I come home is to make a cup of hot, black coffee!